System Logic by Stuart Mill, First Edition (13 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Two volumes. Volumes VII & VIII of Collected Works.

Hardcover. Condition: Acceptable. Dust Jacket Condition: No Dust Jacket. Ninth Edition. No dust jacket. Hardcover. Complete two-volume set. "Ratiocinative and Inductive. Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation". Former owner's name in copperplate writing on FEPs of both volumes. Boards are quite worn, with several stains and grubby marks. Labels across spine heads are faded and rather torn. Spine ends are worn, bumped and nicked and leading corners are worn, bent and frayed. Page block is faded and rather grubby. Several instances of pencilled marginalia in both volumes. Spine is almost completely detached from body of book of Volume I, and hinges of Volume II are very cracked. First and last few pages of both volumes are quite foxed. Text is clear. AF. Used.

Hardcover. First U.S. Edition. Octavo, v, xii, 503 pages. In Fair condition. Bound in the publisher's brown cloth bearing gilt lettering to the spine. Boards have moderate plus wear including some chipping to the joints edges, slight off color soiling, some scratches and slight age darkened spine. Blind-stamped designs to the front/rear. Text block has moderate wear including age toning to the edges. Previous owner's name to the front pastedown and fly leaf. Heavy foxing to the end papers and moderate foxing throughout the interior. First U.S. edition. NOTE: Shelved in Netdesk office, Case #5. 1397348. FP New Rockville Stock.

Ninth edition; 2 vols (22.5 x 15 cm); minor spotting, hinges cracked at endpapers; publisher's pebble-grain blue-green cloth, covers ruled in blind, printed labels to spines, a trifle rubbed at extremities, very good; xx, 563, [1]; xv, [1], 557, [1]pp. The first posthumous edition of J.S. Mill's (1806-1873) greatest work of pure philosophy. First published in 1843, A System of Logic was the result of twelve years of labour in which Mill attempted to find a coherent method of scientific inquiry that could explain the operation of 'moral and social phenomena' (Preface) in the real world. As a result, the book courted great controversy from its first publication in 1843, receiving criticism from defenders of more traditional systems of ethics rooted in metaphysics and theology.

Condition: Very Good. Volume I only. First edition. pp: xvi, 580. Very good copy in contemporary half-calf, corners rubbed. End papers a little spotted.

First Hungarian edition. First Hungarian edition. In three volumes. In later half cloth. Gilt title on spine. XXII, 481, (1); (4), 496; XIV, 514 p. First Hungarian edition of Mill's A System of Logic, translated by Béla Szász. In this work Mill formulated the five principles of inductive reasoning that are known today as Mill's Methods. The work is important in the philosophy of science, and more generally, it outlines the empirical principles Mill would use to justify his moral and political philosophies. . Pages slightly over-trimmed that effects page numbers in the first volume. Ownership inscription and stamp on title page and on its verso in the first and the third volume. Ownership stamp on the title page verso in the second volume. Occasional foxing. Overall in fine condition. In three volumes. In later half cloth. Gilt title on spine.

Hardcover. Condition: Good+. First American edition. Large 8vo. [3], iv-xii, [1], 2-593, [1], [2] (pages of publisher's advertisements), [2] pp. Brown cloth with decorations in blind on the boards, lettering and publisher's device in gold on the spine. Evans 46-4655. Macminn, Hainds, and McCrimmon 56. Oxford DNB, Jose Harris, "Mill, John Stuart (18061873)." A dense thesis divided into six books. Mill discusses various types of knowledge, propositions, fallacies, and writes on the use of logic for moral and social sciences. The Oxford DNB offers a comment on the history of the publication: "On its initial publication in 1843 A System of Logic attracted little public comment, a silence that betokened, according to one contemporary, R. H. Hutton, not lack of interest but sheer terror among the book-reviewing community at the thought of incurring the crossfire of Mill's dialectical powers. Within a very few years, however, it was to become one of the most influential and controversial works of the mid-nineteenth century." A discoloration on the front board, rubbing to the boards' edges, a crossed-out name on the title page and some foxing to the leaves.

First edition of this classic work on logic. Octavo, original cloth. In very good condition with some wear to the cloth and overall toning. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box made by the Harcourt Bindery. First editions in the original cloth are rare. "The statement that John Stuart Mill was Britain's most important philosopher in the 19th century looks like a bold assertion, but in fact it should not be even mildly controversial⊠Mill has no serious rivals" (Dictionary of 19th-Century Philosophers II:792). One of Mill's most important works, System of Logic is "the first major installment of his comprehensive restatement of an empiricist and utilitarian position" (Encyclopedia of Philosophy), setting forth "the fundamentals of the human or 'moral' sciences" (Mander & Sell, 794). "The book had a rapid success, beyond the expectations of its author, and was for many years the standard authority with all who took his side in the main philosophical questions. Mill, in fact was recognized as the great leader of the empirical as opposed to what he called the intuitional school; and few men have had a more marked influence upon the rising intellect of the time" (DNB).

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. 1st. 1846 Harper first edition in patterned blind stamped cloth with gilt titles and Harper device to spine. Light bump to corners with very small tearing to head of spine. Tight binding ownership pencil to flyleaf, text unmarked. Please email for photos. Larger books or sets may require additional shipping charges. Books sent via US Postal.

Condition: Bound. FIRST EDITION. Volume 1: 2 leaves (4 pp.) with advertisements for "Works by William Howitt" + 1 blank leaf + TP + [iii]-vii = Preface + [ix]-xvi = Contents + [1]-580; Volume 2: 2 leaves (4 pp.) with advertisements for "Works by William Howitt" + 1 blank leaf + TP + [iii]-xii = Contents + half-title (with Herschel quote on verso) + [3]-624, Octavo. First Edition (MacMinn, p. 56).This is the first edition of Mill's brilliant first book wherein he makes the "first major installment of his comprehensive restatement of an empiricist and utilitarian position." (EP, Vol. 5, p. 315) The book "had a rapid success, beyond the expectations of its author, and was for many years the standard authority with all who took his side in the main philosophical questions. Mill, in fact, was recognized as the great leader of the empirical school. few men have had a more marked influence upon the rising intellect of the time." (DNB) It is nearly impossible to accurately and comprehensively summarize the book's salient and important points in so small a space. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives two and a half full pages of exposition to the work and then devotes another nine pages to an article entitled: "Mill's Methods of Induction". In short, despite over two thousand years of philosophical consideration of logic based on deduction, Mill abandons that approach and provides an analysis and proof for logic based on the principles of induction working solely from the human experiences of sensation. An incredible tour de force by one of the leading intellects of English philosophy. 1843" inscribed on the inside front cover of both volumes. Internally, very crisp, bright and untrimmed. One small bit of contemporary ink marginalia in the Contents of Volume1. A lovely copy of a set very difficult to find in any condition. Extremely rare in this state. ADDITIONAL PHOTOS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST.

FIRST EDITION. Contemporary calf, spine gilt with twin labels, small portion of head of spine of Vol. I missing, marbled edges and endpapers; blank endleaves spotted as usual in most copies, text in excellent condition. First edition of the author's most important work in pure philosophy. He here gives an account not only of logic, but of the methods of science and their applicability to social as well as purely natural phenomena. "Mill called himself a 'philosopher of experience'; he believed that all knowledge of the universe is derived from sensory observation, and he opposed those who claimed that some knowledge of synthetic truth is either innate or acquired by rational insight." Mill joined the debate over scientific method which followed on from John Herschel's 1830 publication of A preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy, which incorporated inductive reasoning from the known to the unknown, discovering general laws in specific facts and verifying these laws empirically. William Whewell took an opposing point of view in his 1837 History of the inductive sciences followed in 1840 by Philosophy of the inductive sciences, presenting induction as the mind superimposing concepts on facts. Laws were self-evident truths, which could be known without need for empirical verification. Mill countered Whewell's propositions in his Logic; with his methods of induction, like Herschel's, laws were discovered through observation and induction, and required empirical verification. Mill's Logic seeks to diminish the value of knowledge achieved deductively that is, by deriving particulars from universals and to vindicate the importance of knowledge derived inductively, by the accumulation of evidence from particulars. This, his most comprehensive and systematic philosophical work, presented Mill's thoughts on inductive logic and the shortcomings of the use of syllogisms (arguments derived from general principles, in which two premises are used to deduce a conclusion) to advance deductive logic. Initially Mills defines his general terms, and then further examines deduction and induction. He distinguishes between uniformity of "togetherness," where properties that exist at the same time and can be measured or counted so as to give our knowledge a formal order, and uniformity of sequence, where properties are more "causal" and laws must be established with the "eliminative methods of induction." Even mathematics, claimed Mill, is, in a way, inductive. The remainder of the work discusses a variety of operations of the mind, such as observation, abstraction and naming, which are presupposed in all induction or instrumental to more complicated forms of induction, as well as revealing fallacies of reasoning. Mill (1806-1873), a British philosopher, economist, and moral and political theorist, has been called the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the 19th century. His works include books and essays covering logic, epistemology, economics, social and political philosophy, ethics, and religion. DSB, IX, pp. 383-385; Stanford, Encyclopedia of Philosophy; William Stafford, John Stuart Mill.

London, John W. Parker, 1843. 8vo. 2 uniform contemporary half calf bindings with five raised gilt bands to gilt spines. Marbled edges. A nice and tight set with only minor wear to extremities. Vol. 1 with tiny damp-stainin to upper margin, barely affecting but a little bit of the end-papers and the first three leaves - here only the top blank margin, far from affecting any text. Blank leaves a bit brownspotted, otherwise also internally very nice and clean. (2), XVI, 580" (2), XII, 624 pp. Bookplate of "Reginald Dykes Marshall" to inside of both front boards. The scarce first edition of what is probably Mill's greatest book, an epochal work in logical enquiry, not only for British philosophy, but for modern thought in general. "Mill's most important work in pure philosophy was his "System of Logic", which he began at the age of twenty-four and completed thirteen years later" (D.S.B. IX:383).By the first quarter of the 19th century, the theory of logic had been almost overlooked in the English speaking world for centuries. Logic was practiced merely as an academic study on traditional lines, with Aristotle as the great master, but with Mill and some of his contemporaries this was about to change, and Mill's theory of terms, propositions, the syllogism, induction etc., greatly affected 19th century English thought. The many years that Mill allowed himself to work on his "System of Logic" allowed him to be inspired by a number of important steps that were made towards the development of the theory of logic in order to fulfill his groundbreaking work. Mill's main concern as a philosopher was to overrule the influence of the sceptical philosophers and provide science with a better claim to truth. A main breakthrough in Mill's Logic was thus his analysis of inductive proof, and his originality on this point cannot be denied. "We have found that all Inference, consequently all Proof, and all discovery of truths not self-evident, consists of inductions, and the interpretation of inductions: that all our knowledge, not intuitive, comes to us exclusively from that source. What Induction is, therefore, and what conditions render it legitimate, cannot but be deemed the main question of the science of logic - the question which includes all others. It is, however, one which professed writers of logic have almost entirely passed over. The generalities of the subject have not been altogether neglected by metaphysicians, but, for want of sufficient acquaintance with the processes by which science has actually succeeded in establishing general truths, their analysis of the inductive operation, even when unexceptionable as to correctness, has not been specific enough to be made the foundation of practical rules, which might be for induction itself what the rules of syllogism are for the interpretation of induction. " (A System of Logic, Vol. 1, p. 345) . With his demonstrative theory of induction, Mill reduced the conditions of scientific proof to strict rules and scientific tests. He provided the empirical sciences with formulae and criteria that played as important a role to them as the formulae of syllogism had done to arguments that proceeded from general principles. The laws that Mill established are discovered with his famous "eliminative methods of induction", which later figured prominently in controversies about scientific method.Mill's Logic came to found a new strand in the theory of logic, logic as incorporated in a general theory of knowledge, where the whole is rendered more precise by its definite reference to the question of proof. According to Mill the ultimate elements of knowledge are subjective entities, however, knowledge does have objective validity. "Logic alone can never show that the fact A proves the fact B" but it can point out to what conditions all facts must confirm, in order that they might prove other facts. To decide whether any given fact fulfils these conditions, or whether facts can be found which fulfil the.

London, John W.Parker, 1843. 2 vols. XVI,580, XII,624 pp. Raised and gilt tooled contemp. full calf, rubbed, top of spines & corners slightly damaged, two small stamp on endpapers. Scarce first edition of Mill's first important work. In this work Mill formulated the five principles of inductive reasoning that are known as Mill's methods.